Recent reviews by triph

what

sonic is very fast and cool

My original review went a little something like "please buy this game" like many of the other reviews when this game first came out, but I figured that I make a little more of a serious review. This game is a remaster of Klonoa (Wii) and Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil (PS2). As someone who played both the PS1 and PS2 game during as a child, I was hyped from the moment trademarks popped up for this game back in late 2019 and waited impatiently for this game to come out.

The remaster of Door to Phantomile is bright and colorful graphically, occasionally to the point where it's overblown, but still a fairly welcome change considering the dull colors in the Wii remake. The controls feel very smooth (this game also has an unlocked framerate :D) and platforming feels very satisfying. Unfortunately, this remaster falls a little flat in its presentation of the story—something that the original PS1 game was renowned for. While this remaster does use the script from the original PS1 game, the animations still remain the same as the Wii remake, making core moments of the story (the twist and the final ending) feel somewhat dull and expressionless. The developers also opted to use the original voice lines from the PS1 game in all its bitcrushy goodness, which could definitely turn some people away. I do appreciate the attempt to make the remaster closer to the original game, but the attempt does not feel complete here. That being said, if this is your first playthrough of Door to Phantomile, there's still a good chance that the story will make you emotional.

The remaster of Lunatea's Veil follows a slightly similar trend, but I would definitely consider this remaster to be better than Door to Phantomile's remastering. The graphics are fairly hit-or-miss, as some areas are too bright, especially in certain areas where the game is supposed to be dark.
But when the post-processing is done properly, the game looks very nice, arguably better than the original (wish I could put screenshots in a review lol).
This remaster, like Door to Phantomile's remaster, has an issue in cutscenes where characters are just... expressionless. Bit of nerdsplaining here, but essentially, blend shape animations that were embedded in the animation in the original game were not transferred over in this remaster for whatever reason. The developers did reimplement them for animations where it was absolutely necessary (e.g. the face Klonoa makes for "What's that supposed to mean?"), but the other animations where they did reimplement them are very minor. Also a bit of a self-plug, but I did create a mod to restore those animations from the original game, which you can download here[gamebanana.com]. Still, it is unfortunate that a mod is required to bring back functionality from the original game.
Outside of those two issues, I don't have much else to complain about. Platforming is great, level design is a step up from Door to Phantomile, and the soundtrack is an absolute banger. It's a great remaster of the original PS2 game, and while some elements that gave the original its charm at the time (like the Gouraud + Cel-ish shading) are not present here, the changes to make the game more "up-to-date" are fairly welcome.

Overall, very good remasters with a few shortcomings here and there that I really really really wished they had fixed beforehand. Still the same great 2.5D platforming. Still the same amazing soundtrack. Still the same emotional storyline. Still the same wahoos. With that being said, if you're completely new to this series and looking to get into it, I cannot entirely recommend it at the base price point. $40 for a <12 hour game (usually), let alone €50 for Europeans seems too high. $30/€30 definitely seems more reasonable, and if it ever goes on sale for that price (or lower), I would recommend buying this game.

8.25-8.5/10

Also, for nerds out there: This is a Unity game compiled using Mono rather than IL2CPP, meaning decompiling this game is trivial and modding capabilities are pretty much endless :D

nice

sucks

yes

yes

yes

I rate this game c11/a3.


You'll find out later what I mean.

Just noticed that there's even a health bar.

10/10